The Jamaica Station, page 23
part #3 of Carlisle & Holbrooke Naval Adventures Series
‘We may not get the opportunity to meet off Cape François,’ Forrest said, as an introduction, ‘so I want you to understand my thoughts before we sail.’
They all nodded in agreement. It was notoriously difficult to communicate at sea and signalling by flags was still in its infancy. The only way to understand each other thoroughly was to meet on board the flagship, and none of the captains relished the prospect of leaving his ship for any length of time within sight of an enemy port. This dinner in Augusta, safely at anchor at Port Royal, was by far the best way for Forrest to ensure that each of his ships understood their part in the hoped-for action.
‘The ships you saw, Holbrooke,’ he said with an acknowledgement to his most junior captain, ‘have been sent here specifically to see this valuable convoy on its way. We know that there is a seventy-four, probably Intrépide with Monsieur de Kersaint in command of the ship and the squadron. There’s a sixty-four, Opiniâtre, and of course Greenwich, one of our own fifties. We should be able to deal with them.’ There was a general growl of agreement from around the table. ‘De Kersaint also has three or four frigates, thirty-twos and forty-fours.’
‘Is Holbrooke’s the latest information?’ asked Suckling. ‘It’s three weeks old by now. I’m sure the convoy won’t have sailed, but de Kersaint may have been reinforced.’
‘Or he may have lost part of his force,’ said Forrest pointedly. ‘But you’re correct, Suckling, we don’t know what’s waiting for us, which is why Medina will sail as soon as possible to be our eyes and ears. When will you be ready for sea?’ he asked, turning to Holbrooke.
‘The admiral ordered me to be ready by Tuesday the thirteenth, sir,’ he replied, ‘but I can sail on Monday. I just need the last of my water and the powder and shot that Medina used up on the last cruise.’
‘Very well, Holbrooke. My orders will be with you tomorrow at the latest. They’ll send you to sea on Monday.’
Holbrooke almost replied with his usual ‘aye, aye, sir,’ but stopped himself just in time. That wasn’t how the captains of King’s ships spoke to each other. ‘Very well, sir,’ he replied.
‘Now, the normal station for ships-of-the-line watching Cape François is to windward, here at Monte Christi,’ said Forrest, leaning over a chart and pointing to a prominent headland some twelve leagues to the east of the Cape. It was a good place for a blockading force. From there a squadron could intercept anything that came to Cape François from across the Atlantic or from the French possessions in the Eastern Caribbean, and they could pounce on any convoy that left Cape François hoping to take the Caicos Passage. ‘That’s where we’ll meet. The squadron will sail from Port Royal on the twenty-ninth. We all know how difficult the Windward Passage can be, but I’m confident we can be off Monte Christi by the sixth of October. I expect a report on the enemy’s strength when I arrive, Mister Holbrooke.’
Holbrooke merely nodded. He had a hundred questions but was unsure how they’d sound in front of a trio of experienced sea-officers, so he confined himself to a single query. ‘If I should find that anything substantial has changed, should I return towards Port Royal in the hope of finding you, or should I stay on station?’ he asked.
‘That’s an excellent question,’ replied Forrest. ‘Ideally, I’d have two frigates or a frigate and a sloop, but the admiral can’t spare me another. That being the case, if you see that anything has changed, you’re to remain on station and wait for me. If you think it needs to be transmitted urgently, then you may wait for me off the Cape.’ Forrest looked uncharacteristically stern. ‘However, you must avoid being set to leeward of the Cape. Your station is between Monte Christi and Cape François; nothing is to draw you away from there.’ Forrest knew only too well how the lure of fame and prizes could draw a frigate captain away from his duty. He smiled. ‘You’ll have plenty of opportunities to take prizes when us lumbering old ships-of-the-line have destroyed de Kersaint and the convoy is scattering in confusion with the Bahamas under its lee.’
‘And if the French have been reinforced, sir, will you fight, or will you wait for the fourth ship when Admiral Cotes finds one?’ asked Langdon.
Holbrooke studied Forrest as the commodore thought for a moment. He appeared to Holbrooke to be attempting to frame his words in the best way, to have the most impact.
‘Gentlemen, please don’t misconstrue my hesitation. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I know very well what we must do. If we hold our position off Monte Christi, then however large the French squadron, they can’t ensure the safety of the convoy. In fact, if they chase us, then they leave the convoy prey to all the British privateers in the Caribbean, and of course, we can beat to windward of the Caicos and take them before they’re through the passage. Mere tactics, then, would dictate that we should withdraw to windward if the French force is greater than ours.’
Langdon and Suckling looked blank. They could work out the tactics as well as their commodore, but a retreat in the face of the enemy, however tactically sound, was hardly what they needed to further their own careers.
Forrest saw the expressions on his captains’ faces; he was expecting that reaction and had prepared a dramatic finish. ‘However, gentlemen, neither our country nor our navy needs a tame withdrawal, not in the year after Minorca,’ he nodded in Holbrooke’s direction, acknowledging that the lieutenant had been at the Battle of Minorca, ‘and not six months after Byng’s execution. In this case, I judge that discretion is certainly not the better part of valour. Unless the French have double our force, I intend to stand my ground.’
Langdon and Suckling nodded silently in agreement. Byng’s execution was too recent, and it had been too divisive within the navy, exposing the political rift that ran right through the service: this was no time for cheering a bold plan that used the disgrace of Minorca as its foundation. However, it was clear that each of the captains was privately delighted. There was little point in being promoted from a frigate into a ship-of-the-line unless there was the prospect of a fleet or squadron action. What Forrest had not said, the ghost that lurked in every sea-officers mind, was that Britain had taken the momentous step of judicially executing one of its admirals for what amounted to a lack of determination to obey his orders. If an admiral, the son of a peer and a man with political and family ties that ran right through the British establishment, could be executed, then no captain was safe unless he pursued the enemy aggressively, recklessly, even. The execution of Byng cast a long shadow over the navy.
Forrest went on to detail his own supplementary signals for controlling his squadron in battle. They were necessarily few as only a dozen flags were available to use. He described how they would form line-of-battle, with Medina on the disengaged side to repeat signals so that they wouldn’t be missed in the smoke of combat.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ he said with an air of finality, ‘it's well known in Port Royal and Kingston, indeed throughout the whole island, that our squadron has a valuable chase in mind. You can expect every damned privateer in Jamaica to follow when we sail. They’ll be useful in a way because if this convoy sails, even with its escort destroyed, there will be too many for us to hope to take them all. We can rely upon the privateers to sweep up most of them. You all recall the prize rules where privateers are operating within sight of King’s ships?’ Holbrooke certainly didn’t, and neither did Langdon, but Suckling knew or was clever enough to make it appear that he knew. ‘If a privateer takes a prize with a King’s ship in sight, then the man-of-war shares in the usual way,’ he said, and then added with significance, ‘but the reverse isn’t true, no privateer shares in our prizes!’ Suckling and Langdon thumped the table in agreement, and Holbrooke felt that he must do so also. Forrest had been generous with his rum punch before dinner, with his claret during the meal and with his port after the table had been cleared. The effects were showing on the post-captains, and their hammering on the table would have wakened the dead. Holbrooke was no teetotaler himself, that would have been odd indeed in a sea-officer of the eighteenth century, or any century before or since, but he disliked being drunk. The memory of that interview in the naval academy still lingered.
‘Then I believe we should wish success to the privateers,’ said Langdon, with real enthusiasm. He’d used some prize money to buy a share in a sleek twelve-gun brig only a month before and sincerely hoped that his investment would pay dividends. So also had Forrest, his earlier condemnation of damned privateers was acknowledged as merely a matter of form.
‘That being settled we’ll meet off Monte Christi in the first week of October. Now, a toast.’ He stood unsteadily and paused until his captains had followed him. ‘To Monsieur de Kersaint, may he be inclined to come out and fight.’
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23: Jacques
Monday, twelfth of September 1757.
Medina, at Sea. Cape Tiburon, Saint Domingue east fourteen leagues.
On Sunday afternoon Holbrooke signalled that he was ready to sail: wooded, watered, stored for three months and with the gunner’s top tier of barrels touching the deckhead of the powder room. The commodore signalled affirmative, and Medina weighed anchor, hosing off the Port Royal ooze as the cable inched in through the hawse-hole. There was some grumbling among the hands when they realised that the frigate was voluntarily giving up another night at anchor, but it was soon forgotten as the land breeze wafted them down the South Channel and they were able to make an easy reach to the east. If they’d waited until the morning they’d have been forced to tow out of the harbour and down the channel, then the frigate would have faced contrary winds until they were clear of Point Morant at the eastern end of the island. By sailing early, they were clear of Jamaica by the time the easterly set in and could harden their tacks and sheets and make a bold beat into the Windward Passage.
‘If this holds we’ll be off Monte Christi on Wednesday,’ said Holbrooke to Hosking as they passed to leeward of Cape Tiburon.
The master touched the weathered oak of the binnacle. ‘Now, sir, let’s not tempt fate,’ he said and saw an answering grave nod from the quartermaster. Old Eli could tell tales of the malign effect of fate on sailing ships that would make your hair stand on end.
Hosking was having some trouble coming to terms with Holbrooke as the legally appointed captain of Medina. It was all very well when Carlisle was onboard – even though sick, in the thralls of a fever, and incapable of commanding – he’d still been the captain, and young Holbrooke was only standing in for a few days. But now the frigate had stored for three months, and although Hosking hadn’t seen their orders, he could guess their nature as well as anyone else in Jamaica, and he had to prepare himself to serve under this youngster until December. He had to admit that Holbrooke had done well, but it was unnatural that he should now be under the command of his old colleague’s son.
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As it happened, Hosking was proved right. The wind backed into the north-northeast, and Medina had a tough few days making her way up to Cape St. Nicholas at the northwestern end of Hispaniola. It was ‘all hands,’ at the turn of every watch to put the ship about and the watch on deck could look forward to an uncomfortable four hours tending the tacks, sheets and bowlines as though their lives depended upon it. By the time Medina rounded Cape St. Nicholas and started the hardly-less-difficult passage along the north coast the whole ship’s company was tired and grumbling. They passed outside Tortuga – there was no sign of Greenwich this time – and made short tacks along the coast until Cape François came into sight, six whole God-forsaken days after they had won their anchor in Port Royal. The wisdom of Commodore Forrest’s instruction to stay to windward of the Cape was evident. Any ship set to leeward could take days regaining her station, days in which a convoy could sail, kissing its hand to the blockading ships watching impotently from the leeward.
‘We’ll look into the anchorage while we’re here, Mister Hosking,’ said Holbrooke as the cliffs of Cape François loomed out of the morning mist. ‘Mister Lynton,’ he called to his acting first lieutenant, ‘beat to quarters and clear for action.’
‘Drummer!’ bellowed Lynton, his voice cracking on the last syllable. The young marine hurried to the break of the quarterdeck, adjusting his cross-belts and dropping his sticks in his haste. Sergeant Wilson prided himself on being able to guess when his drummer would be called for, but like all the Medinas, seamen and marines, he was dog-tired and had missed the signals.
Holbrooke watched in a detached manner. Only a few weeks ago he’d been personally responsible for the speed at which the frigate’s people went to their stations, and the decks were cleared. Now it was Lynton who strove to impress his new captain, a man with whom he’d shared a mess only fifteen months before. He looked as though the cares of the world were resting on his young shoulders. Holbrooke started to reflect on the harsh life to be expected in the navy and how it was good for young men to be harassed, but then he caught himself on the verge of pomposity – even if it was pomposity of thought.
The familiar headland became more visible as the mist was whisked away on the breeze. Holbrooke could see the battery that had tried its ranging shots against them four weeks before. The view into the bay opened up as the Cape moved to the right of their vision and with a changed perspective became less a prominent headland and more a part of the high bluffs and cliffs that girdled this coast. There was no need to go to the masthead; the anchorage could be plainly seen from the quarterdeck. Holbrooke trained his telescope at the mass of vessels crowding the holding ground in front of the town. Where there were thirty merchantmen a month ago, now there were forty or fifty. The wealth of the French West Indies was gathered in one place, waiting for the end of the hurricane season.
Further to the right, the man-of-war anchorage became visible. At first sight, it looked unchanged. Allowing for the addition of Greenwich, the ships appeared not to have moved since Holbrooke last saw them, but something was different. Holbrooke rubbed his eyes and counted again. In this poor light, it was difficult to tell a ship-of-the-line from a large frigate, and a simple count didn’t help because it was unclear whether there were three or four frigates at anchor a month ago. Nevertheless, it looked different. As Holbrooke was attempting to mentally catalogue the enemy ships, he was interrupted by Whittle at the masthead.
‘Deck ho!’ he called. ‘There’s an extra two-decker in the anchorage, the one nearest the town wasn’t there last time.’
Now that he knew what to look for, it was obvious. Where there had been two ships-of-the-line and three or four frigates, there were now four of the line and three frigates. One of the additions was Greenwich, not much larger than a heavy French frigate, but the other was a newcomer.
‘Well done, Whittle,’ replied Holbrooke.
‘Mister Hosking, no closer than two miles to that battery, if you please, then you may come about and take us out to sea. We must make some way to windward.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ replied the sailing master.
‘Masthead!’ called Holbrooke. ‘Do you see anything to seaward?’
‘Nothing but a local fisherman, sir, far off.’
‘What does she bear?’ replied Holbrooke.
‘Three points abaft the larboard beam, dead to windward, sir.’
‘Mister Hosking, belay my last order; I wish to speak with that fisherman, you may come about now and beat up towards her. I suspect she’ll try to slip around us, she’s probably not too concerned but not willing to take risks. Nevertheless, I want to catch her.’
It was indeed a long beat. The fisherman became alarmed when it was clear that this British frigate was chasing her. It wasn’t usual to make war on fishermen, but the master of this boat was taking no chances, and he tried every trick to slip past the frigate and back towards land. Eventually, in the first dogwatch, the tiny vessel admitted defeat, let its sheets fly and lay wallowing in the swell, the three crewmen looking up in wonderment at the high sides and lofty masts of Medina looming above them.
‘We’re out of sight of watchers on the high land now,’ said Holbrooke to a mystified quarterdeck. ‘Mister Lynton. Send the cutter to bring the master on board. I’ll see him in my cabin.’
Holbrooke paused at the quarterdeck rail. ‘And pass the word for the chaplain, I’d be pleased if he could join me.’
Holbrooke tried to relax. This was a whole new adventure for him. He’d never interviewed a Frenchman before, at least he assumed that the man coming aboard would be French. There was a knock, and David Chalmers opened the door to the cabin.
‘You passed the word for me, sir,’ he said, waiting at the threshold.
‘Please come in, Mister Chalmers and take a seat,’ replied Holbrooke. It wasn’t the challenges of commanding a King’s ship that continually ambushed Holbrooke, it was the changed relationships with the officers and people of Medina. He and Chalmers had walked ashore together only a week ago and been very easy in each other’s company, using each other’s Christian names like old friends. But now it was ‘sir,’ and ‘Mister Chalmers,’ and would continue to be so until Holbrooke returned the frigate to Captain Carlisle’s command.
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‘In a few minutes the master of the fishing vessel that’s alongside us will be brought into the cabin,’ said Holbrooke. He looked significantly at the chaplain but was rewarded with a blank face.
‘I wasn’t aware, I’ve been in my cabin working on my sermon for tomorrow, but if we’re to be joined by a fisherman, then at least I have an excuse for addressing the question of the extraordinary haul of fish on the Sea of Galilee. It’ll focus the crew’s minds if we have an actual fisherman among us.’ It was always tricky to know when the chaplain was joking, he had such a deadpan face.
‘Sadly, he’ll only be with us for a few hours, and he’ll miss your sermon,’ said Holbrooke with a grin. The thought of the master of a French fishing boat joining them for divine service amused him.
